


Turn Back Time

by agrajag



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrajag/pseuds/agrajag
Summary: Well, even with their imminent death facing them, Richie would never pass up an opportunity to fight with Eddie. He was all posed to fire back when the last of the floor above them finally gave out and a cabinet fell toward them. The last thing he remembered was the last of the color draining frombEddie's face as he reached out for Richie's hand ---- and then everything went black.When Richie came to, he just knew he was dead.[...]"What the fuck?" he muttered and then screamed.Because that hadn't been his voice. Except, it was.It was a squeaky pre-pubescent Richie, but it was definitely him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Turn Back Time

Richie had seen it in the Deadlights. 

What might have been.

He had seen Bev call Stan's wife and the look of absolute destruction on her face when Patty informed them that Stan was no longer with them. He had seen Henry Bowers stab Mike and the flashing lights of the ambulance as they had to rush him to the hospital. He had seen Pennywise's claw rip through Eddie and then watched as the life slowly left his eyes. He had seen the rest of them leave Eddie behind as they ran out of Neibolt and back to the hospital, only to find out that Mike hadn't made it. He had seen himself, as if an outside observer, go back to the Kissing Bridge, re-carving something he had put there nearly three decades ago before taking the knife to his wrist.

But it was just the Deadlights. None of that had happened. Stan and Mike and Eddie were still there with them. 

Pennywise was dead.

They had made it this far, and Richie refused to let a little thing like a house collapsing be what finally did them in.

"Come on guys," he yelled over his shoulder.

He was already halfway up the well, with the other six not far behind him. But they weren't close enough. Another floorboard came flying at Richie's head, and he moved just in time to avoid getting hit. There wasn't enough time to shout out a warning, however, and he could hear the sickening thump meaning that one of the other Losers hadn't been as lucky as him.

"Ben!" Bev was screeching.

"I'm sorry, Bev, he's not breathing," Bill shouted over the groaning of the building. "We have to keep moving."

"Yeah, come on," Richie added. "Or we'll be next. This place isn't going to last much longer."

"God, why do you have to be such a dick?" Eddie yelled at him.

Well, even with their imminent death facing them, Richie would never pass up an opportunity to fight with Eddie. He was all posed to fire back when the last of the floor above them finally gave out and a cabinet fell toward them. The last thing he remembered was the last of the color draining from Eddie's face as he reached out for Richie's hand --

\-- and then everything went black.

When Richie came to, he just knew he was dead. There was no feasible way he had survived. Well, if aliens that could warp reality existed, perhaps there _was_ magic after all, but considering he felt no pain what-so-ever, he was going with the whole being dead theory. Even if he had survived, every single bone in his body would have been broken. As it was, he was able to push himself up into a sitting position no problem. He could see perfectly, too, which meant his glasses hadn't broken. Though he wasn't so sure his vision was working because it looked as if he was in Neibolt.

As in, a still very much standing Neibolt.

"What the fuck?" he muttered and then screamed.

Because that hadn't been his voice. Except, it was. 

It was a squeaky pre-pubescent Richie, but it was definitely him.

He looked down at his hands, and sure enough, they were much smaller than they had been before he had passed out. Next was his clothes, which weirdly enough were what he'd been wearing, but now a full two sizes too big and hanging off of his gangly limbs.

"Okay, now I _know_ I'm definitely dead. But being thirteen again is _not_ my idea of heaven."

"Who said you would ever make it to heaven?" someone asked from behind him, and Richie screamed a second time. "Can you please stop screaming? My heard hurts too much for this."

"Stan? Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?"

"Well, excuse me that I wasn't expecting to see your pimple ridden puny ass."

Stan crossed his arms.

"I don't have any pimples."

"Can both of you shut up?" Bill asked, except, his stutter was back. Only slightly, but he was definitely a kid again, too. "Richie, you're freaking out too much. Stan... you're not freaking out enough."

"I mean, I'm about 95% sure this is a dream and I'm going to wake up in an emergency room, so why would be freaking out?"

"No, this definitely feels too real to be a dream," Bev said.

And wow. Even though they all looked a little bit silly in their Adult clothes, Bev in particular looked so strange in something so mature. Not that there was anything wrong with how she dressed now. Or well in the future... or whenever. Richie just had been used to her being such a rebel when they were kids. He had looked up to her, and had always wished that he could be that cool. And at the moment, she looked like a mom.

"Richie? Did you hear me?" Mike asked as he waved his hand in front of Richie's face.

Richie instinctively slapped it away and immediately apologized.

"Sorry. I think I'm still on edge and everything from fighting Pennywise."

"Yeah, well, that's what we were saying. This might be one of IT's tricks, so we're getting the fuck out of this building for starters."

"Yeah, good idea. I mean, IT definitely looked dead, but who fucking knows at this point, right?"

Richie stood up, with Mike's help, and brushed the dust off his pants with one hand as he held them up with the other. Damn, why did he have to have such a beer belly? They all filed out of the magically still standing Neibolt house quietly, and it felt like such an anti-climactic end to the big boss fight. Richie wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to pop up Jason Voorhees style and disturb any celebrating they engaged in. For a moment, they froze out in the street and watched the house, and Richie was reminded of what he had seen in the Deadlights. Bill and Ben holding him back as he screamed until he no longer had a voice. He definitely would take this ending over that, even if he was fucking thirteen years old again.

"I don't know why I thought that we'd change back once we left the house," Eddie mumbled.

"Yeah, I have to admit, I was kind of hoping we would, too," Bill said. "I... I'm not sure what to do now."

"We could go to the quarry," Bev suggested. "Wash off all this dirt and grime."

"Absolutely not," Richie said before even Eddie could protest.

"I... I have to agree with Richie," he said, as if it physically pained him to. "I want a real shower. With soap."

"Are they even going to let us back into the inn without parents?" Stan asked.

He didn't seem actually concerned, however, clearly still at peace thinking that it was a very realistic group dream. And what was so wrong with that? It beat the possibility that IT _was_ still alive and messing with them. It definitely beat the possibility that they were dead and for some sick reason the afterlife was them as teenagers forever. Richie decided that he wasn't going to dwell on it unless he was given a reason to.

He walked over to Stan and slung his arm around his shoulder.

"How about we come up with an elaborate scheme to sneak into the inn? Does that sound fun?"

"Great. Richie is in denial as well now," Eddie said, crossing his arms. The motion pulled his sleeves up, which had been covering his hands. Which in itself had not been absolutely adorable. Richie would never say so out loud, at least. "So, that's it? We're just going to ignore the fact that we're kids?"

"I'm doing the exact opposite of ignoring that fact. Why would we be sneaking in if we were adults? I am fully acknowledging that we're kids, and I'm ready to get into some hi-jinks."

"We can worry about that later," Mike said. "It _is_ a good idea to take a shower, and then we can all meet up the library. I can see if there's anything about this in the research I did and missed it."

"Sounds like a plan," Bill said. "Um, so do you guys think it's safe for us to drive back the way we are?"

"Oh, I can definitely pass for 16," Richie said. "Any cops pull us over and I'll say I just got my permit."

Clearly the Losers didn't think it was the smartest of ideas, but no one was exactly keen on walking all the way back into town, so they all made their way down the street where they had parked their cars. Except, none of their cars, and the bike that Bill had rode over on, were there.

"There's no way they _all_ were stolen," Ben said. "The odds of that happening are so slim."

"Except if this were a dream," Stan said. "That kind of stuff happens in dreams all the time."

"Fuck it, we're in a dream, then!" Eddie said, throwing his arms up in the air.

And then he stomped off into the direction of Derry proper.

Richie started following him, the rest of the Losers quickly in tow. Normally, the walk wouldn't take more than half an hour, but suddenly all their legs were much shorter _and_ , while Richie couldn't speak for everyone, he still felt as sore as any other middle aged asshole. Or, well, that might have been thanks to being tossed around by Pennywise not even an hour previously. Anyway, by the time they made it to the Derry Inn, it was mid-afternoon and Richie was more looking forward to a nap than he was the shower. It wouldn't be the first time he passed out and left a mess for some poor maintenance personnel to clean up, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

He was so busy day dreaming about soft pillows and fuzzy blankets that he hadn't been paying attention. The rest of the Losers were saying something to him, but he ignored them as he tried to open the door, despite it clearly being locked. He jiggled the handle a few times and even tried bracing his foot against the wall as he pulled on it.

"Isn't there a rule against locking a hotel or inn's door?" he asked.

"Not exactly. If the inn is out of business," Bill said, pointing toward the boarded up windows.

"How did they manage that in one night?" Richie muttered.

"I don't mean to upset anyone, since I know most of you are sticking to the dream theory," Ben said, "but wasn't the inn shut down temporarily when we were kids?"

"Oh my God, it was," Stan said. He covered his mouth as he went running for the bushes. There was a distinct retching sound and then he promptly rejoined them. "It's not a dream. I'm not going to wake up in the hospital with my wife waiting by my bedside. I'm actually a fucking kid again."

"So you think we went back in time?" Bev asked.

Ben nodded.

"I think that killing Pennywise maybe... reset things?

Everyone turned to Mike for an answer, but he simply shrugged.

"We haven't stopped by the library yet, so I really know as much as the rest of you. I don't _remember_ anything I read mentioning that, but it's about as far fetched as Stan thinking this was a dream."

"It was a perfectly reasonable theory."

"Actually makes more sense than resetting," Eddie said. "If it reset things, why haven't we gone back to when IT first landed on Earth? What makes _us_ so special? Why do we have to relive our shitty lives with all this baggage?"

"Because we're the ones who defeated IT?" Bev suggested.

"Then we should be rewarded, and I don't count having to go through high school a second time a reward."

"I guess the universe thinks giving us a chance to do it right is a reward," Richie said. "And having our memories this time means we technically should learn from our previous mistakes."

"What mistakes? We had all been successful," Eddie pointed out. "Well, I mean, Mike will get to leave Derry."

Mike smiled.

"I could finally go to Florida. I really did want to go there someday."

"Yeah, and I may have been successful, but there definitely _were_ mistakes made," Richie said. "I'm not looking forward to doing _all_ of it over again, but there are a few things I should probably try to right."

Eddie sighed.

"Okay, so it wasn't all perfect for me either. Laugh it up, Richie."

"And it's not going to be perfect right away," Bev said, before he and Richie could get into another one of their fights. "If we're actually thirteen again, that means we have to go home."

"No!" Ben shouted, gaining them a few stares from people walking down the street. Honestly, Richie was surprised they hadn't gained a crowd already, what with them all wearing clothes that weren't only too big for them, but that weren't in style. "We can't let Bev go back there."

"We can't let Eddie go back to his mom," Richie added.

"Okay, but we can't exactly kidnap them either, can we?" Stan asked. "We're just... we're going to have to be there for each other. Just like the last time."

He reached out and took Eddie and Bev's hands in his.

"Losers stick together, right?"

"And this time we actually will," Bill said. "Through all of it. Even if we move away. Because we're going to remember each other, and we're going to keep in touch, and we're going to meet up for dinners like we did last night once we're adults again."

"You're not going to make us take another pact about it, are you?" Mike teased.

Bill just rolled his eyes and grabbed Mike's hand and tugged him toward Stan, Eddie, and Bev. He took Bev's hand in his other, raising his eyebrows at Richie.

"Yeah, alright. Losers stick together," he said, as if it were a pain. He grabbed Eddie's hand, like he had all those years ago, although he supposed it hadn't been that long ago after all. In fact, that wouldn't have happened in this time line, would it? "So, are we going to stand around here in a stupid circle all day, or are we finally going to go take those showers?"

"Oh my God, you guys, my mom is going to kill me," Eddie said with a groan.

"Deja vu," Bev said with a laugh.

"Yeah, that's going to be happening a lot for the next, oh, 27 years," Mike said, and then they were all laughing.

Laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Laughing because it was finally over. Laughing because they got to be together now, the way they had been meant to be. And also maybe laughing because people were _definitely_ staring at them now.

Strangely enough, for once in his life, Richie didn't mind. He squeezed Eddie's hand and smiled down at him. Eddie rolled his eyes at first, but eventually he smiled back.

Yeah, maybe it would be nice to do it right this time after all.


End file.
